Islam's European Reformation?

2/26/2010 - Opinion Political Social - Article Ref: WI1002-4097 Number of comments: 1 Opinion Summary: Agree:1 Disagree:0 Neutral:0 By: Christian Sahner Witherspoon Institute* -

The controversial Tariq Ramadan's latest book promotes a "Western" version of Islam. Is he the "Muslim Martin Luther"? Late last month, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton lifted a six-year visa ban on the Swiss Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan, an Oxford professor and Europe's premier voice of reformist Islam, had been prohibited by the Bush administration from entering the U.S. on the grounds that he had given money to the Palestinian militant group Hamas - a charge he vigorously denied. Ever since, Ramadan has polarized public opinion in both America and Europe: the left lauds him as a "Muslim Martin Luther," while the right demonizes him as an extremist in sheep's clothing. Despite the passionate debate, neither side has shown much interest in the substance of Ramadan's message - conveniently summarized in his concise new book, What I Believe (Oxford University Press, 2010). Ramadan wrote What I Believe as "a work of clarification." In it, he emphasizes that his goal is to fashion a distinctively "Western" expression of Islam that does not require Muslims to choose between their national identities and their religious one. According to Ramadan, a person can be both fully Muslim and fully French, British, or German; these multiple identities shift and blend depending on the situation we face. Ramadan's intellectual agenda reflects his own unconventional upbringing: his maternal grandfather was Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the radical group that championed the establishment of an Islamic state in Egypt and which launched the modern era of Islamist politics. Ramadan's father, Said, was one of al-Banna's senior deputies, and after al-Banna's death, he went into exile with his family in Geneva. There, he committed his life to preserving and disseminating alBanna's legacy. The first of Said Ramadan's children born in Europe was Tariq. Caught between the Islamist cauldron of Egypt and cosmopolitan Geneva, Tariq grew up parsing his multiple and seemingly competing identities. As he writes, "I am

Swiss by nationality, Egyptian by memory, Muslim by religion, European by culture, [and] universalist by principle." After a secular education at the University of Fribourg and religious training at AlAzhar University in Cairo (the global center of Sunni learning), Ramadan made a name for himself in the nineties as an expert on European Islam. It was a prescient concern. By that time, it was clear that the latest waves of immigrants-mainly Muslims from North Africa, Turkey, and south Asia, who had come to Europe to jumpstart manufacturing industries left crippled by the war-were not integrating properly. Despite having lived in Europe for decades and even having raised a new generation there, Europe's immigrant Muslims were steeped in social, economic, and religious discontent. The discontent was exacerbated by widespread unemployment, low rates of education, and a seeming unwillingness to engage with the culture of their new countries. Most disturbingly, the malaise encouraged some young Muslims to experiment with rigid, literalist interpretations of their faith-expressions of Islam that promoted the use of Islamic law, sanctioned honor killings, and even condoned terrorism in the name of religion. This powderkeg has prompted deep reflection among white Europeans and the European Muslims who live among them: Is Islam fundamentally opposed to European values? How can governments integrate groups unwilling to desegregate themselves? Is Europe a secular or religious continent? These represent the signal questions facing Europe today; and for much of the past fifteen years, Tariq Ramadan has been at the center of the debate. Ramadan's fame owes not only to his timely academic interests. He has also attracted considerable controversy. His connections to the Muslim Brotherhood have earned him deep suspicion. Meanwhile, in a 2004 book the French journalist Caroline Fourest chronicled examples of Ramadan's alleged "double-speak": instances of Ramadan modifying, even contradicting himself before Muslim and non-Muslim audiences, preaching a liberal message of integration, at the same time urging Muslims to resist European culture. Among his most notorious statements came during a 2003 debate with current French president Nicholas Sarkozy, in which Ramadan called for a "moratorium" on stoning, refusing to support an outright ban.
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Despite the rancorous debate surrounding Ramadan's true beliefs it is worth trying, at least for a moment, to separate the ideas from the man and ask whether Ramadan offers a workable solution to Europe's "Muslim problem." Fundamentally, Ramadan's project focuses on integration. He wants to see Europe's Muslim communities become full participants in their adoptive cultures, such that "Muslim" and "European" are regarded as complementary identities. Islamic and European values rest on a common bedrock of moral teachings, he argues, grounded in the pursuit of "justice, solidarity, and human dignity." Acknowledging these shared principles could contribute to several goals: ending the tug-of-war many Muslims sense between their Islamic and European identities reconciling native Europeans with the immigrants who live among them; and building a multi-cultural society where difference flourishes among common civic principles.

Establishing common ground is key if Islam is to become a true interlocutor in the European conversation. To that end, Ramadan urges Muslims to distinguish between the cultural trappings of their faith, which tend to separate them from their new countries, and the essence of their faith, which has the potential to transcend cultures and continents. Many of the most troubling practices in Europe's Muslim communities-such as stoning or genital mutilation-are "un-Islamic" in Ramadan's view. They represent vestiges of Algerian, Egyptian, or Pakistani culture that immigrants have failed to jettison as they have settled in their new lands. So long as these groups continue to huddle in ethnic ghettos, resisting pressure to join the mainstream, they will cling to these practices. Ramadan's solution is to develop a new "Western Islam"-a radical "reconstruction" of the faith that upholds core beliefs shared by all Muslims, but which also embraces important European values, such as freedom of religion and respect for women. If history furnishes any clues, Ramadan's "Western Islam" could become a reality one day. Over the centuries, Islam has proven remarkably durable and dynamic, capable of spreading among diverse cultures and across far-flung continents. From the first hundred years, when Muslim armies carved out an empire stretching from Portugal to China, to the fourteenth century, when Sufi missionaries began preaching deep in southeast Asia, to our modern day, when mosques rise around Detroit, Paris, and Rome, Islam has shown itself adept at inhabiting new cultures as it maintains its strong sense of self. While the situation in Europe may appear grim at the moment, there is ample precedent throughout history of Islam's ability to adapt-even if it often entailed conquest.